Totally with you on the artistic value of having a fight in the city, but
also giving the fight some scale. I mean Thor v Loki in Avengers was pretty much like 2 ordinary guys fighting, Supes v Zod was waayyyy more epic - even when they trade a couple of blows on the ground, it's much more like two gods fighting. And yes, part of the epic feeling comes from the speed and the destruction - which was highlighted by the urban setting. It was an artistic choice and one that worked. Yeah, I suppose he and Zod could have levelled some mountain ranges, but that wouldn't be as dramatic IMO

It's weird how when we get on to the action in MOS, it always seems to come back to that old "Superman didn't save anyone" complaint. I suppose if you only see the movie once, you might get lost in all the action, so fair enough. But like somebody else said, watch the film again and you realise that's just not true.

As to the destruction being over the top or "disaster porn" what I
I truly believe is that Snyder/Nolan's point in making that choice was
that they wanted to say " If Superman really had a fight in the middle of a city, THIS is what it would look like."

On that note, I loved the fact that we got a very close up view of cars and people being flattened by the gravity beam. Avengers cops out a little by not showing civillian casualties ( you mean the Chitauri didn't manage to kill anyone, come on ? )

I don't want to knock the Avengers, it was tremendous fun, but I think
MOS was a spectacle at least one level up from that, with much greater
stakes.

Besides, comparisons with Avengers start to break down when you think about them a little, especially in respect of the final battle, partly because the Kryptonians didn't send in a bunch of soliders on flying quad bikes, who carried small arms, they used a single immensely destructive weapon.
So containing the damage was a different challenge - a challenge they were able to succeed at because, there's more than just one person.
(also, Supes did contain it, to Metropolis, as opposed to the whole world)

Which is also, as you pointed out, the reason the Avengers were able to save a few people (well some of them did) is because....they're a team, which by definition means there's more than one of them. Superman, for all his great power, is one person, and can't be in two places at once. So he could either fight Zod, or let Zod smash more of Metropolis

Plus, Zod was virtually as powerful as Superman (which makes him infinitely more powerful, dangerous and destructive than the Chitauri ), whereas the Avengers who were solely fighting the Chitauri (Thor, Iron Man and Hulk) were basically picking off bugs (well, big nasty bugs, but compared to Thor, bugs).

And of course again there's the big picture, that if Supes doesn't stop Zod there and then, well, that's it for the human race (which is the reason he had to kill Zod, not to save the family, but to save humanity).

And in terms of saving people you've got:

the oil rig workers, the kids in the school bus, Lois in the escape pod, the helicopter pilot, the entire human race (by destroying the world engine), the family at the end. So there's actually a few saves there.

Why didn't he save anyone during the battle ?

Saving the pilot was a great example of what happens when Superman stops in the middle of a battle to save someone, he gets smacked from behind, which leaves the bad guys free to destroy more stuff, as Faora was gleefully slaughtering the soliders while Supes was busy with Nam Ek).

Fights (even between ordinary people) are messy things -particularly when the combatants are trying to kill each other, and have similar abilities.
The idea that Superman could exert some kind of control over the conditions is nonsense. In a real fight, you don't have time to think about what's going on. It's one thing to watch a fight, and think "Hey why doesn't that guy just..." but another thing to be in a fight and think of the right thing to do.

Superman is pretty damn green in this film, in fact he's never been in a fight before. Is it that much of a stretch that he makes some blunders ?

As to why Supes didn't try to catch the spaceship. Well, he was inside it when it crashed. I suspect that the reason he didn't catch it is that he just couldn't. Maybe he'd have been able to lift it if it was stationary, but an object that size (it's 300m long, so the size of 3 football fields) travelling at a few hundred miles per hour, would have been
really hard to stop (force = mass x change in acceleration, Newton's second law).

Remember he didn't actually stop the escape pod Lois was in (which would have been travelling pretty damn fast, as it was falling from orbit) he just caught up to it, tore it open, and pulled her out.

Superman in MOS isn't as powerful as Silver age Superman, who could have stopped the scout-ship with one finger.

Also, he crashed the ship into the crater left by the gravity beam, so not all that likely that anyone was left there. The fact is that almost all of the destruction caused in Metropolis was caused by the Gravity beam, or by
Zod (using heat vision to cut the skyscraper in half so it crumbled) or tossing Supes through a bunch of buildings - remember when Supes punches Zod and sends him flying it's above the buildings, it's then Zod who flies down into the city to hide and then ambush Supes).

(and again, big picture, if Zod has the ship, and then can kill Kal and get the codex, then humanity's history, as Zod will be able to raise a whole generation of kryptonian super-babies).

What seems a bit of a double standard is that people make it out that when Superman gets thrown through those buildings by Zod, it's somehow his fault for the destruction that results.

Yet, when the jets fire missiles which get deflected and then themselves
crash into the city, causing enormous destruction, no one goes "Wow, those air force bastards did a lot of damage to Metropolis"
Glad somebody else pointed that out ( I mean, those jets open up with missiles and cannon fire on main street Smallville, when they have troops on the ground, and civillians hiding in buildings. How many people would have got killed in the resulting explosions, waaayyy more than Supes and his Kryptonian enemies killed. And when the jets crashed, well, there goes downtown Smallville !)

So, in summary, I enjoyed the final battle of MOS, I'm not saying that with a few tweaks it could have been even better, and possibly avoided some of the criticisms that have been levelled at it. But hey, it is what it is.

I'm also not saying that MOS is a perfect film (I loved, LOVED, it ) but every film has its flaws, and MOS does too. However, I just can't see the action being one of them.

Sorry to everyone who's already brought all these arguments up in defence of MOS, as I'm covering old ground.

I think what I liked most about it, and I imagine this probably irked others, was how sudden it was. The first hour or so of the movie is kind of slower paced and more introspective , except for the Krypton sequence. By the time the battle of Smallville kicks into gear you're just COMPLETELY thrown for a loop and not expecting something this visceral. Its almost like the tone of the movie completely changes and that's not a bad thing. To be honest, throughout the first hour or so of the movie my reaction was like "Eh, so far this is pretty good, but I wanna see some action. When is Superman going to hit somet--oh-Oh--OH DAMN!!!"

See some people don't realise that its OK to just not like a film. So they feel they need to nitpick and even find faults that aren't even there. It makes me laugh cause then you get great posts like Batmannerism's that just blows them out of the water. They really would be better off just saying they didn't enjoy the film.

See some people don't realise that its OK to just not like a film. So they feel they need to nitpick and even find faults that aren't even there. It makes me laugh cause then you get great posts like Batmannerism's that just blows them out of the water. They really would be better off just saying they didn't enjoy the film.

Again, that's very kind of you to say, although I'm sure pretty much all of it has been said before by lots of different people. I do feel really sorry for Superman fans who didn't enjoy MOS. It was the Superman film we needed and the one we deserved IMO.

Nitpicking is a funny thing, I know I'm guilty of it too from time to time.
I loved Superman the movie, but even as an 8 year old, I remember thinking "How does flying around the world turn time backwards ? And doesn't that just make him have to save those people all over again ? "
but who cares, it's such a great film and so much fun.

Totally with you on the artistic value of having a fight in the city, but
also giving the fight some scale. I mean Thor v Loki in Avengers was pretty much like 2 ordinary guys fighting, Supes v Zod was waayyyy more epic - even when they trade a couple of blows on the ground, it's much more like two gods fighting. And yes, part of the epic feeling comes from the speed and the destruction - which was highlighted by the urban setting. It was an artistic choice and one that worked. Yeah, I suppose he and Zod could have levelled some mountain ranges, but that wouldn't be as dramatic IMO

It's weird how when we get on to the action in MOS, it always seems to come back to that old "Superman didn't save anyone" complaint. I suppose if you only see the movie once, you might get lost in all the action, so fair enough. But like somebody else said, watch the film again and you realise that's just not true.

As to the destruction being over the top or "disaster porn" what I
I truly believe is that Snyder/Nolan's point in making that choice was
that they wanted to say " If Superman really had a fight in the middle of a city, THIS is what it would look like."

On that note, I loved the fact that we got a very close up view of cars and people being flattened by the gravity beam. Avengers cops out a little by not showing civillian casualties ( you mean the Chitauri didn't manage to kill anyone, come on ? )

I don't want to knock the Avengers, it was tremendous fun, but I think
MOS was a spectacle at least one level up from that, with much greater
stakes.

Besides, comparisons with Avengers start to break down when you think about them a little, especially in respect of the final battle, partly because the Kryptonians didn't send in a bunch of soliders on flying quad bikes, who carried small arms, they used a single immensely destructive weapon.
So containing the damage was a different challenge - a challenge they were able to succeed at because, there's more than just one person.
(also, Supes did contain it, to Metropolis, as opposed to the whole world)

Which is also, as you pointed out, the reason the Avengers were able to save a few people (well some of them did) is because....they're a team, which by definition means there's more than one of them. Superman, for all his great power, is one person, and can't be in two places at once. So he could either fight Zod, or let Zod smash more of Metropolis

Plus, Zod was virtually as powerful as Superman (which makes him infinitely more powerful, dangerous and destructive than the Chitauri ), whereas the Avengers who were solely fighting the Chitauri (Thor, Iron Man and Hulk) were basically picking off bugs (well, big nasty bugs, but compared to Thor, bugs).

And of course again there's the big picture, that if Supes doesn't stop Zod there and then, well, that's it for the human race (which is the reason he had to kill Zod, not to save the family, but to save humanity).

And in terms of saving people you've got:

the oil rig workers, the kids in the school bus, Lois in the escape pod, the helicopter pilot, the entire human race (by destroying the world engine), the family at the end. So there's actually a few saves there.

Why didn't he save anyone during the battle ?

Saving the pilot was a great example of what happens when Superman stops in the middle of a battle to save someone, he gets smacked from behind, which leaves the bad guys free to destroy more stuff, as Faora was gleefully slaughtering the soliders while Supes was busy with Nam Ek).

Fights (even between ordinary people) are messy things -particularly when the combatants are trying to kill each other, and have similar abilities.
The idea that Superman could exert some kind of control over the conditions is nonsense. In a real fight, you don't have time to think about what's going on. It's one thing to watch a fight, and think "Hey why doesn't that guy just..." but another thing to be in a fight and think of the right thing to do.

Superman is pretty damn green in this film, in fact he's never been in a fight before. Is it that much of a stretch that he makes some blunders ?

As to why Supes didn't try to catch the spaceship. Well, he was inside it when it crashed. I suspect that the reason he didn't catch it is that he just couldn't. Maybe he'd have been able to lift it if it was stationary, but an object that size (it's 300m long, so the size of 3 football fields) travelling at a few hundred miles per hour, would have been
really hard to stop (force = mass x change in acceleration, Newton's second law).

Remember he didn't actually stop the escape pod Lois was in (which would have been travelling pretty damn fast, as it was falling from orbit) he just caught up to it, tore it open, and pulled her out.

Superman in MOS isn't as powerful as Silver age Superman, who could have stopped the scout-ship with one finger.

Also, he crashed the ship into the crater left by the gravity beam, so not all that likely that anyone was left there. The fact is that almost all of the destruction caused in Metropolis was caused by the Gravity beam, or by
Zod (using heat vision to cut the skyscraper in half so it crumbled) or tossing Supes through a bunch of buildings - remember when Supes punches Zod and sends him flying it's above the buildings, it's then Zod who flies down into the city to hide and then ambush Supes).

(and again, big picture, if Zod has the ship, and then can kill Kal and get the codex, then humanity's history, as Zod will be able to raise a whole generation of kryptonian super-babies).

What seems a bit of a double standard is that people make it out that when Superman gets thrown through those buildings by Zod, it's somehow his fault for the destruction that results.

Yet, when the jets fire missiles which get deflected and then themselves
crash into the city, causing enormous destruction, no one goes "Wow, those air force bastards did a lot of damage to Metropolis"
Glad somebody else pointed that out ( I mean, those jets open up with missiles and cannon fire on main street Smallville, when they have troops on the ground, and civillians hiding in buildings. How many people would have got killed in the resulting explosions, waaayyy more than Supes and his Kryptonian enemies killed. And when the jets crashed, well, there goes downtown Smallville !)

So, in summary, I enjoyed the final battle of MOS, I'm not saying that with a few tweaks it could have been even better, and possibly avoided some of the criticisms that have been levelled at it. But hey, it is what it is.

I'm also not saying that MOS is a perfect film (I loved, LOVED, it ) but every film has its flaws, and MOS does too. However, I just can't see the action being one of them.

Sorry to everyone who's already brought all these arguments up in defence of MOS, as I'm covering old ground.

Close the thread now. I appreciate this movie more and more after repeated viewings.

Again, that's very kind of you to say, although I'm sure pretty much all of it has been said before by lots of different people. I do feel really sorry for Superman fans who didn't enjoy MOS. It was the Superman film we needed and the one we deserved IMO.

Nitpicking is a funny thing, I know I'm guilty of it too from time to time.
I loved Superman the movie, but even as an 8 year old, I remember thinking "How does flying around the world turn time backwards ? And doesn't that just make him have to save those people all over again ? "
but who cares, it's such a great film and so much fun.

Peace out Super fans !

Yeah I've nitpicked myself at stuff and I guess when its something that truly bugs you or disapoints you you will. Its just I don't like when people make things up and point at things as flaws that aren't there. I just would rather see people say it wasn't for me, I didn't care for the characterisations or the pacing or whatever. Its like me I was disapointed by the Dark Knight Rises but I've said its on me why I was because it wasn't the film I wanted. I thinks its OK to have that opinion rather than point at stuff and say this shouldn't happen or he wouldn't do that etc.

I'm currently in the middle of watching it for the first time (yeah, I know) and I have to say, so far...yeah, it's a little too much. I mean, the first half-hour is 90% action scenes and confrontations, and I feel like a lot of it is laid on pretty thick. Like, did we need to see the kids on the bus gasping for air for several seconds before Clark saved them? Did we need a whole brutal rebellion on Krypton before they launch him? Did we even need to see Superman's mother screaming in the throes of birth for a minute and a half (seriously, she doesn't even smile at her baby afterward...or ever, really)? I feel like they could have lingered a few minutes less on the violent stuff and gained a lot more time for developing Clark and stuff like that.

__________________
"You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you because you're just too much fun."

I had heard that the final 20 minutes were just destruction, before I saw MOS.

But when you watch the Supes vs Zod fight, it's barely more than 5 minutes.

I know that some people complained that the last half hour had so much destruction and noise that it wasn't enjoyable.
For myself, I thought it was great, Nolan and Snyder set out to show us what it would look like if Superman got into a scrap in downtown, and that's exactly what they did.
I have no idea why people complained.

Personally, I thought the Battle of Smallville set a new high in terms of Superhero vs Supervillain fights, and was the best action piece of the film. Now that was just magic, in terms of its brutality and pace.

Supes vs Zod was good, and I liked the speed at which it took place, in fact it goes so fast that there are lots of little things I missed on the first viewing. As far as fights go it feels a bit shapeless, well compared to Smallville anyway (maybe cut it by a minute and have a bit more choreography of them going toe to toe, although I loved the exchange of blows in orbit, nice, very nice - and I guess flight was an important part of that fight, as they wanted to show Supes fighting someone on even terms.

So, all in all, I had no problems with the action.

BTW I liked that Krypton didn't just blow up, the Kryptonians were responsible for their own demise, and I really liked the brief Kryptonian Civil war - love that shot where Jor El runs out of the council chambers and just stops and looks, his jaw drops as he sees that all out war has erupted. I call that the "**** gets real on Krypton" shot.
As an opening action sequence it set the pace and tone for the film. Nice Snyder, very nice !

Good post and yes it had alot of action but that is a great thing in a action film.

@Batmannerism
Great post. They should play that after the credits start.

The best way I would describe the situation is two fold:
In The Winter Soldier, when cap is fully engaged with his equal(and not green), he's no longer in his run around saving people mode that he was during the avengers. Like superman, it begs the question as to why. Did he all of a sudden stop caring about the exploding cars with innocents inside? Stop being someone that puts the little guy first? Or was he simply and obviously otherwise incapacitated.
There was a scene in which he was shot off a bridge by a rocket launcher and lands in a bus..when the equivalent happens to superman people simply can't appreciate the context. Which is a shame.

Secondly, by turning on the gravity beam and not simply threatening to do so, it would be like Hydra turning on those helicarries and firing upon the USA/World and cap having to do his thing after the fact.
A different approach was employed by snyder/goyer. They just chose the wrong character to it with if they wanted fans to appreciate it.
Either way, hardly the in film characters fault.

@Batmannerism
Great post. They should play that after the credits start.

The best way I would describe the situation is two fold:
In The Winter Soldier, when cap is fully engaged with his equal(and not green), he's no longer in his run around saving people mode that he was during the avengers. Like superman, it begs the question as to why. Did he all of a sudden stop caring about the exploding cars with innocents inside? Stop being someone that puts the little guy first? Or was he simply and obviously otherwise incapacitated.
There was a scene in which he was shot off a bridge by a rocket launcher and lands in a bus..when the equivalent happens to superman people simply can't appreciate the context. Which is a shame.

Secondly, by turning on the gravity beam and not simply threatening to do so, it would be like Hydra turning on those helicarries and firing upon the USA/World and cap having to do his thing after the fact.
A different approach was employed by snyder/goyer. They just chose the wrong character to it with if they wanted fans to appreciate it.
Either way, hardly the in film characters fault.

Yo ! Thanks dude. Very kind of you to say.

Nice analogy between WS helicarriers and the Gravity beam. Yeah, that's exactly what it would have been like. In some ways I kind of wished they had turned on at least one of them, just to make the ending a bit less tidy - as in maybe Cap and his buddies couldn't stop them all.

Cap totally couldn't save anyone when he was engaged with WS, his equal as you say, because he was fighting for his life.

I still like how Goyer/Snyder/Nolan went with MOS though, mostly because I think they were trying to show us what would really happen if Superman had to fight some bad guys of a similar ability level in downtown, things would get broken ! Total delivery on that point.

You're probably right about part of the fan base. It's a pretty big departure from Superman the Movie, in which he gets a cat out of a tree, to Man of Steel, in which he breaks someone's neck with his bare hands - quite a change in tone as well as action. It worked for me, but I can understand why it didn't for some.

Too much action? No way. What did people think was going to happen when Gods fought in the middle of a major metropolitan city? The film makers had to do a 180 after the godawful, and boring, Superman Returns. I'm glad SM was finally able to punch something.

Too much action? No way. What did people think was going to happen when Gods fought in the middle of a major metropolitan city? The film makers had to do a 180 after the godawful, and boring, Superman Returns. I'm glad SM was finally able to punch something.

Totally ! My feelings exactly (especially about Superman Returns !).

Nolan and Snyder went out to show us what Superman in a more realistic world was going to look like, and they delivered 100%. Big ups to them for having the balls to do something different and not just imitate Donner's 1978 Superman.

Too much action? No way. What did people think was going to happen when Gods fought in the middle of a major metropolitan city? The film makers had to do a 180 after the godawful, and boring, Superman Returns. I'm glad SM was finally able to punch something.

perhaps some just would like to see him punching with care.

__________________
“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

Nolan and Snyder went out to show us what Superman in a more realistic world was going to look like, and they delivered 100%. Big ups to them for having the balls to do something different and not just imitate Donner's 1978 Superman.

It's funny that so many people, especially older film critics, went into MOS thinking they were going to see another Donner SM movie, and hence were disappointed and "nit-picky" in their critiques.

In my opinion, it was refreshing to see Superman finally able to "let go" against an opponent of equal power instead of having to resort to those lame "additional" powers (cellophane \S/, weird white light out of the fingers) in the Donner movies.

FYI: I don't mean to rip on the Donner movies too much. They were great for their time, and I really enjoyed them as a kid, but they have not aged well.

It's funny that so many people, especially older film critics, went into MOS thinking they were going to see another Donner SM movie, and hence were disappointed and "nit-picky" in their critiques.

In my opinion, it was refreshing to see Superman finally able to "let go" against an opponent of equal power instead of having to resort to those lame "additional" powers (cellophane \S/, weird white light out of the fingers) in the Donner movies.

FYI: I don't mean to rip on the Donner movies too much. They were great for their time, and I really enjoyed them as a kid, but they have not aged well.

you don't get it. they don't age. they are still as fresh as rose to most.

__________________
“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

It seems that the avengers action is rated higher then man of steel.I explained some of the reasons myself for that in another thread and the avengers have more action and man of steel really had less.
It was about the same amount as ironman 3.

I love MOS, but the action was a bit wearying for me because i was so heavily invested in Superman's character, I felt so tired for him...though I feel there was too much action, I think it was more because of the lack of a breather or respite in between action scenes. The brief kissing scene was all too brief IMHO :-)